A striking yellow "U" glowed brilliantly against the black upper half of the sphere. It stood for "Ultra," meticulously carved from incredibly expensive memory metal!
Miles's pupils shrank. He gasped. Holy crap. Wasn't this the legendary artifact worshipped by veteran trainers in underground black markets and top-tier auction houses?
It was an Ultra Ball!
In this world, spatial folding technology and material science were still severely limited. Because of this, even a basic red-and-white Poké Ball cost several hundred Federation credits.
But an Ultra Ball? This was a device that boasted a massive leap in capture rates and internal comfort, designed specifically to force-capture high-level wild Pokémon.
It had a terrifying official retail price of twenty thousand Federation credits! Furthermore, they were rarely in stock and required an incredibly strict background check just to qualify for purchase.
Yet, this seemingly plain, shy college girl had casually pulled out a twenty-thousand-credit luxury item just to hold her pet.
Miles took a much closer look at the delicate girl. His gaze caught a hidden, embroidered logo on the collar of her "ordinary" white cashmere sweater.
Suddenly, everything clicked.
This wasn't some plain girl next door. She was a low-key, wildly wealthy heiress!
[Viewer "Late Night Explorer": Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!! Are my eyes playing tricks on me?! An Ultra Ball?! That's a top-tier capture container worth 20k! This girl is actually using such an expensive ball to hold a common Paras?! What an absolute waste!]
[Viewer "Market Insider": Bro, this is crazy... Are college girls really this outrageously rich nowadays? A single ball costs more than what I make in half a year of grinding! Poverty has truly limited my imagination!]
[Viewer "Fashion's Ultimate Exposer": Chat, don't just stare at the ball! Look closely at that white cashmere sweater she's wearing. That's a limited-edition autumn/winter release from a luxury Italian haute couture brand! The tag price starts at 60k Federation credits minimum! This is a genuine, top-level heiress!]
[Viewer "Slacker Who Gave Up": RIP my pride. Innocent rich sister, are you looking for a boyfriend? Or maybe a houseboy who can cook, do laundry, and be absolutely obedient? Just nod and I'll buy a ticket to your dorm right now!]
[Viewer "Canyon's Most Affectionate Jungler": Sugar momma, I'm starving! Sister, what do you think of me? I might suck at games, but my emotional value is maxed out! Please sponsor me!]
Miles couldn't stand watching the chat devolve from "admiring a beautiful girl" to "begging for a sugar momma."
He slammed a hand against his desk and unleashed his most venomous streamer persona.
"Ahem! To all the shameless people in the chat clamoring to be her boyfriend, could you have a little dignity?" Miles deadpanned. "Who in the chat is well-hydrated? Go take a leak and wake them up! And remember, no one with diabetes is allowed to step up—we absolutely cannot let these daydreaming brats taste even a drop of sweetness!"
His crude, yet devastatingly effective roast hit the mark.
An earth-shattering burst of laughter erupted from the dorm room on the other side of the screen. The college girls swayed and clutched their stomachs, tears practically streaming down their faces.
The already shy heiress finally processed Miles's colorful banter.
She flushed bright red. The color rushed from her cheeks all the way to the tips of her translucent ears, making her look like a perfectly ripe apple.
Yet, that deep, girlish blush didn't make things awkward. If anything, it only made the wealthy heiress seem even more genuine and approachable.
[Viewer "Elden Ring Senior Lecturer": LMAO! W streamer! Though Master Miles, you drove that joke right over my face without warning!]
[Viewer "Broke Corporate Slave": GG! Master Miles's roasting skills are unmatched! I was drinking instant noodle soup and laughed so hard I snorted it out my nose! Pay for my keyboard!]
The laughter helped the girl calm her nerves. She reached out a slender, pale finger and gently pressed the release button in the center of the priceless Ultra Ball.
"Come out, Paras," she said softly.
Flash!
A dazzling white light pulsed with strange energy. A Pokémon roughly the size of a small dog materialized on the smooth wooden floor.
When the high-definition camera captured the creature, Miles's teasing expression stiffened. He leaned back in his chair, marveling inwardly.
'Paras? So it was you all along, little guy!'
If someone had to describe this Pokémon's appearance in a single, grounded word, it would be- Cordyceps.
As the light faded, the data on this common—yet vaguely unsettling—Pokémon flashed through Miles's mind. He actually knew a lot about Paras. Hearing the name out of context just hadn't triggered the connection.
Now that the creature was right in front of him, the memories flooded back.
Sitting before his monitor, Miles scrutinized the camera feed with a professional gaze.
Most of the little creature's body was a vibrant tangerine orange. At first glance, it looked like a hermit crab or a small crustacean. But looking closer through a strict biological lens, its true form was much closer to a cicada nymph.
It had three pairs of legs. The front pair was abnormally thick and large, lined with sharp, serrated bone spurs. It held them high, making them look exactly like lethal crab claws.
The back two pairs were short and stubby, pressed tightly against the ground to support its weight and balance while crawling.
Strip away the "cute" cartoon filter, and Paras's face was actually quite unsettling.
Its mouth had no lips. Instead, it blatantly exposed two rows of sharp, white insectoid teeth—six in total. Above the teeth jutted a strange, bulbous nose, sitting below five mysterious bony nodes scattered across its broad forehead.
If you put this thing under a microscope in the real world, it was absolutely the face of a terrifying monster. The kind that would make children cry in the night.
But the magic of nature's design saved it. Plastered right onto that horrifying face were two massive, perfectly round, pitch-black eyes brimming with innocent moisture.
It was precisely those pitiful, cartoonish eyes that forcefully dragged its aesthetic away from "horrifying alien" and right back into "adorkable pet."
Of course, you couldn't mention Paras without talking about its most iconic feature—the core of its very existence. Two mushrooms grew parasitically on its back, sporting purplish-red caps speckled with pale yellow spots!
They looked almost like decorative hair clips, but they had a resounding, deeply medicinal name in the official Pokédex.
The Pokédex stated:
"The mushrooms on Paras's back are an incredibly precious medicinal ingredient, often used as an elixir of longevity. When plucked, dried, and ground into powder, they hold immense medical value in black markets and traditional pharmacies." Its evolved form, Parasect, had an even wilder entry...
"Collecting its scattered spores and boiling them in water creates a top-tier medicine capable of curing all diseases."
Miles remembered these entries vividly because of a wild get-rich-quick scheme he'd once seen online...If you caught a few Paras and raised them as "livestock," harvesting their mushrooms daily to sell, couldn't you achieve absolute financial freedom?
But reality was brutal.
Federal biologists had quickly debunked the grand scheme. The mushrooms on a Paras weren't weeds. They didn't just instantly grow back after being cut.
These parasitic fungi took a very long time to grow, and every ounce of nutrients they absorbed was ruthlessly extracted from the host Paras's own life force!
Forcefully and frequently harvesting them only yielded immature, low-value medicine. Worse, it caused the host Paras to rapidly wither and die from severe vitality depletion.
Furthermore, truly authentic, high-value fungi had to be processed entirely whole—mushroom and the underlying "insect body" combined.
This cruel harvesting method inherently required sacrificing the Pokémon's life. Naturally, it was classified as a severe felony under Federation law.
Pulling his thoughts back to the present, Miles refocused on the lethargic, harmless-looking creature on his screen.
With the brightly colored mushrooms acting like delicate bows and those dark, innocent eyes staring blankly, it really did exude a strange, adorably clueless aura while surrounded by beautiful college girls.
At the Pokémon's debut, the chat surged with activity....
[Viewer "Late Night Cultivator": Wow! Such a cute little crab! Those two mushrooms on its back are the perfect finishing touch, like it's wearing red hair bows. So girly!]
[Viewer "Veteran Wild Pokémon Scholar": This is a classic parasitic Pokémon, Paras. For this girl to use a twenty-thousand-credit Ultra Ball to hold a bug you can find anywhere in the forest... that level of wealth breeds pure envy. Though, Paras are notoriously troublesome to raise, especially due their evolution.]
[Viewer "Broke Corporate Slave": Good lord, I just tabbed out to look it up, and the mushrooms on its back are actually rare medicine?! Rich sister, do you need a farmhand to help pick mushrooms? Keep the salary, just feed me!]
[Viewer "Canyon's Most Affectionate Jungler": Honestly, Paras looks pretty cute at this stage, but once it evolves into Parasect, its appearance falls off a cliff. Those dead, pupil-less cataract eyes send shivers down my spine. Is the girl suppressing its evolution on purpose because it gets too ugly?]
[Viewer "Keyboard Holmes": Stop guessing blindly, chat! The girl clearly said she tried everything but the Paras absolutely refuses to evolve! This isn't about it being ugly... it's likely a severe, highly rare hidden disease in the Pokémon's genetics or body!]
[Viewer "Market Insider": Master Miles, work your magic! With this heiress's insane wealth, the Pokémon Centers she visits are definitely top-tier private clinics. If even highly paid medical experts can't figure out this incurable disease, it's time to see Master Miles show his true skills!]
[Viewer "Just Want to be a Rich Heiress": My heart aches for the little guy. Seeing it lying on the ground looking so depressed, it must be so uncomfortable. Master, please check on it quickly, make sure its life isn't in danger!]
"You're saying the biggest issue with this Paras is that it's completely unable to evolve, correct?" Miles dropped his joking demeanor, his tone turning sharp and professional.
"Yes... Master Miles," the heiress replied.
She crouched down, her face filled with heartache, and gently scooped the Paras into her arms. Her slender fingers softly stroked its orange carapace.
"According to the public growth cycle standards in the Pokédex, a Paras should naturally evolve around level 24. But... my Paras is clearly on the verge of breaking past level 30. Its level has far exceeded the critical point for evolution, yet it shows absolutely no signs of changing."
Her voice trembled with anxiety and helplessness.
"I've fed it incredibly expensive, high-grade nutrient fluids to stimulate cell activity. I've taken it to the best Pokémon Centers for comprehensive, full-body genetic scans. The medical reports all show that its bodily functions are perfectly healthy—even stronger than its wild counterparts. So why won't it evolve?"
"Its level far exceeds the threshold, but it refuses to evolve?" Miles's brow furrowed deeply.
Without a moment of hesitation, a faint, imperceptible swirl of deep blue light ignited in the depths of his eyes.
He activated the 'Eye of Pokémon Insight'!
Hum!
A softly glowing, highly detailed data panel instantly materialized across his retinas, locking onto the Paras resting in the girl's arms.
[Target: Paras (Mushroom Pokémon)]
[Level: 29 (Severely exceeding conventional evolution level!)]
[Type: Bug / Grass]
[Gender: Female]
[Base Stats Rating: D-Tier (285, A bottom-tier, frail shell)]
[IVs Total: A-Tier (189, Extremely rare perfect developmental aptitude, an incredibly robust insect body!)]
[Ability: Effect Spore (Contact may poison, paralyze, or cause sleep)]
[Nature: Adamant (Attack ↑, Sp. Atk ↓. Extremely stubborn disposition; not even a team of Tauros could pull her back once her mind is made up)]
[Known Moves: Scratch, Stun Spore, Poison Powder, Absorb, Fury Cutter, Spore, Slash]
[Current State: Under intense psychological suppression / Accumulating the light of evolution / Resisting extreme pain through absolute endurance!]
As Miles's gaze tracked down the stat sheet, his eyes abruptly narrowed.
At the very bottom of the panel, flashing frantically and erupting with a piercing purple glow, was a destiny tag.
A Purple Fate Entry!
Upto 20 chapters ahead on patreon :-
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